This plan will not work. If it was to work, then I'd have to become a Democrat and believe that more taxes and bigger government is the answer and it's not what the president ran on during the campaign. President Clinton is much different than candidate Clinton and that's the frustration.
The budget proposal offered by the Democrats is a recipe for economic and fiscal disaster. It proposes to increase taxes at a time when Americans are already overtaxed. It proposes to increase taxes at a time when we have a fragile economy--higher taxes will only stifle job creation and economic growth.
We have a stagnant economy and there is nothing down the road that makes it look like we're going to have the kind of economic growth that puts people to work.
I rise today to sound the alarm on a provision of the proposed reconciliation package that has ominous implications for New York City. The proposed reduction of the business-entertainment deductions contained in reconciliation could produce a job loss of at least 15,000 in the New York metropolitan area alone, and hundreds of thousands more job losses in business and tourist centers across America. The provision is, in effect, a new tax…If adopted, this provision would inflict deep wounds on New York City's second largest industry-tourism. Many experts fear that with the new tax, companies would drastically scale back use of meals and entertainment as part of doing business. That would directly affect restaurants, hotels, and theaters and trigger adverse ripple effects in industries like catering and conventions. New York is the premier arts and business center in the United States, so its economy depends heavily on business and entertainment. This reform would not only hurt the business community; it would also hurt the beleaguered arts community….The economic repercussions will be felt all across America: from New York City to Chicago to Las Vegas to Hawaii. As an export product, travel and tourism accounts for 11 percent of total U.S. exports of goods and services. Industry experts estimate that as much as $1 billion in new tax revenue will be raised from Manhattan alone. This is an ominous prospect. Worst of all, experts fear that this provision will be counterproductive as a revenue raiser, bringing minimal revenue benefit at great human cost.
[The voters] will remember who let loose this deadly virus into our economic bloodstream.
The votes we take today will not be soon forgotten by the American voters. Both votes on the rule and on final passage will lead to more taxes, higher inflation, and slower economic growth.
…your economic program is a job killer. Your tax increases on the energy in this country will affect people from the automobile to the schoolhouse to the grocery shelves.
About the only positive environmental impact this tax package will produce is that in destroying 400,000 American jobs, there will be fewer commuters driving their cars to work each day! Between the Clean Air Act and this proposed tax, this country will lose almost 20 percent of its refinery capacity by the end of the decade. In addition to the refinery problem, the tax is punitive to clean fuels, providing little incentives for industries to switch to more environmentally sound fuels like natural gas.”
Day after day, tomorrow after tomorrow, in every purchase they make, every trip they take, in every school, in every church, in every workplace, in every home, in ways that they may not even be aware of, the Clinton energy tax will be a silent, greedy destroyer of their family budget. And they will remember who set loose this dreadful virus into the economic bloodstream of our Nation
After careful analysis, I decided that I could not support this package. It goes too far in raising taxes and not far enough in cutting spending….I fear that this package, if enacted as passed by the House, will come back to haunt all of us because of its emphasis on taxes over spending cuts. We must not abandon the more fiscally responsible, new Democrat approach on which we were elected.
